


Home (For The Holidays)

by missmissa85



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Modern Setting, Christmas, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Family Fluff, Starks live, Westeros is basically Britain, but I live in Oklahoma so I’m not really an expert, i watch a lot of British tv, lots of established relationships, references to past abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmissa85/pseuds/missmissa85
Summary: Arya’s seemingly rash decision to marry her older boyfriend after her gap year drove a wedge between her and her mother. Five years later with a baby on the way, Arya and Gendry are heading North for Christmas with the entire Stark clan, including her ever-doubting mother.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Jon Snow/Ygritte (background), Relationship Tags to Be Added, Renly Baratheon/Loras Tyrell (background), Sansa Stark/Theon Greyjoy (minor), robb stark/talisa maegyr (background)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 176





	1. Journey North

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeey! So, I have been working on Home of Our Own Making, but Thanksgiving (the American one) ushered in this most festive time of the year and Arya/Gendry + Christmas would not go away. Unlike my canon-divergent fic, I’ve planned this one out and hope to have it finished by Christmas. Hope being the key word.
> 
> Warnings this chapter for mentions of past abuse.

A private train car was significantly different from his mode of travel the first time he’d journeyed to Winterfell.After years of bouncing around foster families in King’s Landing and a brief, traumatizing stint with one of his biological uncles in Dragonstone, he was sent north to the home of Davos and Marya Seaworth on a bus. He hadn’t realized then how lucky he was in that placement. It fundamentally changed the course of his life.He met his future wife when she sat down next to him on the bus disguised as a boy—poorly in Gendry’s opinion—while she was running away from her dreadful school in King’s Landing back home to Winterfell.He called her on her bullshit disguise and she told him the further truth that she was the daughter of the deputy prime minister.He saw red when she showed him the bruises the headmistress had left Arya with and it started a protective instinct in him he thought only existed for the preservation of himself.As it happened, she had to protect him from the truly large form of Sandor Clegane when they got off the bus and the security man mistook Gendry for a kidnapper. Arya made a point later, when everything had calmed a bit at home to introduce him to her cousin, Jon.They made fast friends and soon Gendry found himself a part of the large, extended Stark family.

Catelyn Stark, Arya’s mum,had been warm and welcoming to him for years.She told him she appreciated what a grounding influence he was for ‘the boys’—mostly Robb, Jon, and Theon Greyjoy—and that he was always willing to look out for the little ones.He could recall with perfect clarity watching the warmth fade from Catelyn Stark’s face when Arya announced to the family that they were dating when she was only sixteen and he was approaching twenty.Catelyn said it was the age difference that she found objectionable, but Gendry had been around long enough to figure out the truth: the same quality she liked about him as a friend to her children—his status as a member of a much lower class—made him completely inappropriate as a romantic partner.

He’d known Arya and the Starks for twelve years, but it had been over five years since he’d been a part of a Christmas where the whole Stark clan got together.Catelyn tolerated his presence when he and Arya were dating, and even let him and the Seaworths join in when Arya was in Nepal on her gap year. When he and Arya got married in a small civil ceremony with Sansa as the only family member in attendance a few days after her return from her travels, however, Catelyn effectively blamed him for leading her daughter astray and banished him from the house.

They usually spent the holidays with Gendry’s uncle and employer, Renly, and the Baratheon-Tyrell clan. A couple of years earlier, Sansa and a freshly back from unlawful imprisonment Theon, spent Christmas with them in the relative peace of Storm’s End.It wound up being a fortuitous holiday for Sansa as she impressed Renly’s sister-in-law and famous socialite Margaery Tyrell with her fashion designs. With Margaery’s support, Sansa had grown a successful brand in less than two years and the private train car was her doing. Gendry took comfort in the fact that Robb had managed to talk her out of the private plane as that would not look good for him as a newly elected MP.

So, the southern-dwelling Starks and partners and children were gathered on a chilly King’s Landing platform as Sansa supervised (ordered) the loading of their collective luggage and everyone else tried to stay warm in the unusually cold King’s Landing afternoon.

“Gen! Gendry!”

He turned to see his uncle Renly running toward them, his husband Loras’s curls bouncing close behind. Robb’s protection officer stopped them and demanded to look into the packages in their arms. Gendry almost laughed at the flabbergasted look on his uncle’s face before he said, “Jory, it’s all right. These are my uncles.”

“I still have to look through the packages, sir,” Jory said with his thick brogue.

“It’s…Christmas,” Loras stated as he reluctantly handed over his box of packages.

“Sorry, Loras. He’s just doing his job protecting my suddenly very important brother.”

He almost jumped at his wife’s sudden appearance.She always delighted in her ability to sneak up on him, and he hadn’t gotten any better at sensing her presence in the five years they’d lived together. She looped her arm through Gendry’s as they waited for Jory to let Renly and Loras approach. When the inspection finally finished, Renly sighed in relief and rushed over to them with his husband close behind.

“We brought your presents from us, and from Margaery, and even from Stannis,” Renly said as they passed over the box and bag full of packages over to the pair.

“Stannis sent gifts?” Arya asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You didn’t go ahead and burn them for us?” Gendry grumbled.

“Oi! Be nice. Since his mistress buggered off back across the sea, and his wife and daughter died, I think Stannis is trying to rebuild his fences,” Renly replied.

“Fuck his fences,” Gendry returned flatly.

“Gendry, our niece and nephew are both less than eight-years-old, which seems a bit young to start teaching them the serious swear words,” Arya admonished with a smirk.

He looked back over his shoulder to see Robb’s wife, Talisa, pulling her children’s attention away from Gendry and his uncles. He grumbled and turned back toward them. “I’m not going to open it,” he insisted.

“Well, then I certainly hope it isn’t a puppy,” Loras said before stepping forward to kiss Arya on the cheek and shake Gendry’s hand.

Renly raised an eyebrow as a mischievous glint lit up his eye. “Loras, he’s not Robert. You can kiss him too. Like this.”

Gendry sputtered a protest, but couldn’t do much with his hands full, and just had to grimace as his uncle pulled him down and placed a sloppy kiss on his cheek that lasted a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. When Renly let him go, Gendry watched as his uncle shook Arya’s hand while she giggled. Loras just shook his head at his husband’s antics.

“I just happen to be aware that Gendry only likes it when Arya kisses him,” Loras said, taking Renly’s hand. “We have to catch our connection to The Reach. Big Tyrell family holiday at Highgarden.If you see us on the news, just know it was my gran’s fault.”

Arya laughed out loud as Gendry shook his head.His uncles started to walk away, but Renly turned suddenly and said, “Gen, did you get it on board and everything?”

“Of course I did.”

“I hope it works!” Renly said called over his shoulder before Loras pulled him along to say a quick greeting to the rest of the gathered Stark clan.

“What’s he talking about?”

Gendry closed his eyes and swallowed a groan.He didn’t want his wife asking questions because she wouldn’t stop the entire week until Christmas Day.“It’s a surprise.Something I’ve been making at work.”

“What is it?”

“Do you need me to take those packages?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

“They’re not that heavy.”

“But you’re—”

“What’s the surprise?”

“Why do you want to know? You love surprises.”

“Only when I’m not on the receiving end.”

“You’re not on the receiving end of this on per se…”

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Arya, I’m about to endure a week with your mother, who despises me, and we’re keeping it from her that we’re expecting a baby, so can you please just let me have this one?” he said in a rush.

His diminutive wife pursed her lips before saying, “Fine,” and shoving the packages in her arms over to his.

“What? I thought you said they weren’t that heavy.”

“That was before you reminded me I’m already carrying plenty,” Arya replied, smirking.

“It’s been twelve years and you’re still an annoying little shit sometimes, you know that?”

“You love it.”

“Yeah, I do,” Gendry acquiesced as she stood on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips.

“Stop that. We have to go,” Sansa said, her red her flying about beneath a vintage fur hat that made her look like a lost Romanov.

“Alright, Sans, we’re coming.Your precious schedule will be maintained,” Arya said, following her sister.

Gendry struggled with his awkward load until Robb helped him and followed him up the steps to the train car. He had almost expected it to be bespoke and full of chintz, but it was actually just a normal train car with no other occupants. Ned and Alysanne, Robb and Talisa’s children, excitedly ran from seat-to-seat, enjoying the freedom. Gendry stowed the packages and found a seat next to a window and set it to recline as far as it would go. He felt a small body take the seat next to him and mirror his movements. He automatically put his arm around Arya’s shoulders as she curled into his side.

The train started to move and the activity in the car lessened to a low hum. He could feel himself start to drift off and then he heard an uncharacteristically small voice say, “Are you really worried about Mum?”

He opened his eyes and looked over at her. “I know I wasn’t what she wanted for you. She wanted someone with connections or at least a title. Like Ned Dayne or something.”

Arya smirked. “You were so jealous of poor Ned. It was so cute.”

“Shut it. She’s always hated the idea of us together. I think she hoped your gap year would split us up, but then we got married without your family—“”

“Sansa was there.”

“And her dislike for me will only grow if she thinks you decided not to go to law school because I got you pregnant.”

Arya straightened up and turned to look down on him. Her gray eyes weren’t quite blazing, but the sparks around the edges told him she was just a few wrong words from exploding at him.

“First of all,” she began, hissing at him in a low volume, “you did not get me pregnant. We made the decision to stop using protection and see what happens as partners. You didn’t do anything by yourself. Secondly, I decided not to go to law school and focus my energy on the foundation over a year ago.”

“We didn’t tell her that, though.”

“Because she would have made my graduation from uni a nightmare. Lastly, you’re a Baratheon. Your father was prime minister and my father’s best friend.”

“Robert was a sperm donor at best and you know it,” Gendry replied through gritted teeth as he turned his head toward the scenery whizzing by in the window.

“Your uncle, who adores you despite your intense grumpiness, owns the largest tech firm in the country and would make you a VP if it wouldn’t look too much like nepotism.”

Gendry groaned. “I wouldn’t want to be a VP. I don’t get to work hands-on enough as a project manager.”

“Hmm. I have always enjoyed your hands-on work.”

Gendry glared at her. “There are children right there,” he reminded her, inclining her a head to where Sansa and Talisa we’re unsuccessfully attempting to show Ned and Alysanne how not to cheat at checkers.

“Their minds aren’t in the gutter like yours,” Arya teased. “Look, for Mum, you’re not actually the problem, you’re just another symptom of my rebelliousness. I always resisted what she wanted for me even as a child. Everyone else waited until they were grown and out of the house to start disappointing her expectations.”

Gendry often wondered how high her expectations could have been. Among the children Catelyn Stark raised were a respected and charismatic MP, a decorated forest ranger, a high-ranking naval attaché, a respected and responsible businesswoman, and Gendry’s personal favorite: a woman who created an almost completely self-supporting non-profit providing housing and education and employment to abused women and their children through coffee shops, a vintage clothing store, and a children’s bookshop opening in the new year. What Catelyn Stark could possibly be disappointed in, he could not fathom.

Arya, having always been an expert at reading his facial expressions said, “Sansa was supposed to be someone’s accessory and not have to fend for herself. Jon still hasn’t married the mother of his child despite the fact they’ve been together nearly a decade. She probably is fairly proud Theon isn’t dead in a ditch from choking on his own vomit. And, laastly, she thought Robb was too young when he married and that marrying a foreigner with no good connections in this country was going to derail his future. There was also the fact that she was nearly four months pregnant at their wedding.”

Gendry started to warm at the memory of Robb and Talisa’s wedding. They had been together for over a year, but they hadn’t slept together for a plethora of reasons. When they told the family about their relationship, Theon flippantly said they’d probably been fucking since Arya “finally” got her breasts when she was fourteen. Gendry broke his nose and Sansa had had to hold Arya back to keep her from adding a black eye. Gendry also had his own personal hang ups about sex since learning how god-awful promiscuous his biological father had been. Added to that, his Uncle Stannis’s mistress, Melisandre, had propositioned and groped him when he briefly lived with Stannis’s family. He managed to escape from her long enough to call Davos who immediately bought him a ticket and told him how to escape through the secret passages of Dragonstone. It was why he was on the bus to Winterfell when he met Arya in the first place. He’d had a few awkward, teenaged tumbles before that, but nothing since. And he already knew that Arya was different. He had forgotten, however, how bloody impatient Arya could be. She’d had enough waiting, and while they danced, she whispered into his ear all the things she wanted to do to him. He found himself powerless to resist as she took him up to her room well away from the reception and had her way with him. He knew that night it would be his last first time with a woman.

“Stop that,” Arya told him warningly.

“Stop what?”

“You’re drooling.”

“I am not.”

“Close to it. Reliving some happy memories, are you?”

He grinned and turned in his seat to face her. He placed a hand on her hip, letting his thumb and forefinger settle under the hem of her sweater. “You saying you don’t have any happy memories of that night, Stark?”

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of happy memories of that night, Baratheon,” she promised. “I’d gladly re-enact some of them with you if the children weren’t so close.”

“Are Uncle Gendry and Aunt Arya going to kiss?” Alysanne attempted to whisper, although her volume was far too high.

Gendry snorted at the annoyed expression on his wife’s face. “Well, we were, before the moment was shattered.”

“I’m sorry,” Alysanne replied, her lip beginning to quiver.

Talisa was rolling her eyes at her daughter’s dramatics, but Gendry felt something pull deep in his chest and he rose from his seat, crossed the car in two quick steps and gathered his niece up in his arms. The girl’s frown immediately vanished and the tear receded from her big brown eyes as she wrapped her arms and legs around him. A year ago, she wouldn’t have been able to lock her ankles around his waist, but she had grown so much and Gendry suddenly wished they lived closer to King’s Landing than the three-hour drive from Storm’s End.

“S’alright, Annie,” he assured her, “your Auntie Arya makes everyone cry.”

“I do not!”

“I disagree,” Robb interjected, looking up from the government documents he and Theon had been pouring over. “I seem to remember you making Bran and Rickon cry a lot when you were young.”

“It’s not my fault they were both rubbish at Mario-Cart!” Arya argued. “And Rickon knew if he cried Mum would let him have a cookie before dinner.”

“But Uncle Bran’s brilliant at Mario-Cart,” Ned pointed out as he illegally moved one of his checkers.

“Mate, if you’re going to cheat, don’t do it while you’re speaking and everyone’s looking at you,” Gendry teased as Sansa glared at the boy and replaced his piece while he pouted.

“Not cheating at all is the best course of action though,” Talisa said, ruffling her son’s brown hair.

“Bran played a lot of video games when he was first convalescing after the accident,” Theon explained with a smirk. “Meanwhile, your Auntie Arya was learning how to run away from school and seduce older men.”

“Shut up, Theon!” every other adult in the car replied at once.

Theon merely chuckled and shook his head before turning back to his work. Gendry rolled his eyes. Apparently, Theon could only mature so much.

He replaced Alysanne in her seat and whispered in her ear about the unfortunate spacing of her brother’s pieces. The little girl smiled wickedly as she hopped over the last of her brother’s pieces and made them her own.

“Hey!” Ned protested. “Uncle Gendry told her what to do. That’s cheating!”

“Taking advice is not the same as cheating,” Sansa primly informed her nephew.

“Rematch!” Ned demanded as he angrily reset the board.

Gendry chuckled and turned away. He caught look in Arya’s eyes that he rarely saw. He’d seen it first when Arya held Jon’s daughter, Lyanna, in her arms for the first time. Recently, he’d seen it when they saw their baby in the ultrasound. He called it soft, and it was rare because his wife was a woman of many sharp edges.They were honed first in her competitive training in fencing and later kick boxing.The trials her family had to endure in the years following her father’s tenure as deputy prime minister only hardened her edges. Gendry was fairly certain he was one of the only people privileged enough to see the pieces of softness left in Arya Stark.

“Why are you giving me that look?” he asked, settling back down in his seat and pulling her to him.

She pressed a kiss to his cheek and circled her arms around his neck. “Just thinking about what a wonderful father you’ll be,” she said, resting her head on his chest.

Gendry’s breath hitched in his throat and his fingers stilled in her hair. Doubt had been a nearly constant companion since she told him they were expecting. He had had good father figures later in his life, but none at the beginning.He wasn’t entirely sure what a good childhood looked like; how could he provide that for a child?

“Do you really think that?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Of course,” she replied, snuggling closer to him. “I think the fact that you didn’t have a father for so long made you care more than anyone I’ve ever known. You’ll be amazing.”

He crooked a finger beneath her chin and pulled her eyes up to his. “The same goes for you too.I hope you know that.”

She kissed him softly on the lips and he was greater everyone else was too distracted to comment. “Get some sleep. I think you’re going to need it.”

* * *

As modes of travel went, trains were squarely in the middle for Arya. Boats were the best along with horses, although they were not always practical in the modern world.The hassle of the airport made flying almost interminable. The fourteen hour bus ride she’d taken from King’s Landing to Winterfell when she was twelve made her feel utterly trapped and had ruined her ability to take long voyages by car. The three-hour drive from Storm’s End to King’s Landing was the most she could manage. Train journeys were far shorter than those by car and the rhythm of the rails was far more comforting than the uneven rhythm of the road.

She tiptoed out of the railcar’s toilet to find most of the occupants dozing. She wished she had her phone to take a picture of her politician brother asleep with his head back and mouth hanging open while his five-year-old napped happily on his chest. Talisa sat across from them with her feet in the open seat next to her husband. Young Ned was soundly asleep in her lap as she read the trashy romance novel she bought at the train station gift store. Sansa was actually knitting, an activity she had little time for anymore while Theon was actually asleep with his head resting on his fist.

Gendry had fallen asleep almost as soon as Arya advised him to do so. The anxiety and tension faded from him in sleep. It made him seem younger, although it fortunately didn’t make him look younger. Gendry’s looks had definitely improved with age. Arya hadn’t aged much since her teens according to the clerks at nearly every bar and cinema she had ever been to.

“Are you feeling alright?” Sansa whispered, rearranging her needles and yarn as she took the seat across from where Arya sat next to her husband.

“You don’t have to whisper,” Arya replied confidently at a normal volume.“The train could derail and this one still might not wake up.”

Gendry was going to be an excellent father, of that Arya was sure.She was also sure that she was going to have to physically shove him out of their bed if he was ever going to help with nightly feedings and diaper changes.

“That won’t make him very useful at night with a baby.”

Arya blinked, unsure she heard the words come out of her sister’s mouth. She looked up to find Sansa with a smirk on her lips and her eyes a little too focused on her knitting. Suddenly, Arya’s stomach twisted at the thought of Theon making a sarcastic remark in front of the whole family, or Robb and Talisa casually mentioning it at dinner over the next week.They, after all, were due to have their third in three months. They wouldn’t mean it to be hurtful.

“Oh my god! Sansa, did you overhear us earlier? Does everyone know?”

Sansa placed her knitting in her lap as a blush crept up her cheeks. “I didn’t overhear if you were talking about it earlier.I…saw the reminder on your phone about the ultrasound when we went to lunch a couple of weeks ago.”

Arya was at once relieved and annoyed. “You are so…I don’t even know what to say to you right now,” she hissed.“Why are you only saying something about it now?”

“I saw an opening and took it,” Sansa replied, happily returning her to whatever she was knitting. “You haven’t said anything because you don’t want Mum and Dad to know, do you?”

Arya shook her head. “It’s just Mum, really. Dad may have been a bit uncomfortable about the age gap when I was still in school, but he’s always accepted and supported our relationship since I got back from Nepal. And he loves kids.”

Sansa’s eyes flicked over to Gendry before returning to the motion of the needles in her hands. “You have a right to be wary of Mum, I suppose.Gendry’s not imagining things if he thinks Mum’s attitude toward him changed when you started dating.She always hoped you would grow out of the crush you had on him.”

“I did not have a crush on him!” Arya protested, knowing she was absolutely telling a lie.

Sansa’s incredulous eyebrow arch proved she knew it was a lie as well.Arya huffed and admitted, “Fine, watching him play rugby with his shirt off is how I knew I was attracted to men. It also set the bar pretty high, if I’m honest.”

“She also didn’t like that you moved so far south when you married him.You were planning on going to Northern before your gap year, and Karhold is a lot closer to Winterfell than Storm’s End.”

“I don’t understand why she would want me so close.It’s not as though we’ve ever been close.You’re her favorite since you happen to be her carbon copy. I love you, but I was never going to be like you, and that was never going to sit well with Mum.”

“Arya, after everything that happened when Dad was in government and I was with…Joffrey,” Sansa struggled over his name, “Mum wanted us close.Bran’s accident happened close to him and she couldn’t stop that. Horrible things happened to us when we were away from home for too long, and she cares. Because she’s a good mum.”

Arya shook her head.“But she knew Gendry before we were together, or she should have. She should have judged our relationship based on what she actually knew about him,” she said, looking over at her husband.

“You say I’m a carbon copy of Mum, and it’s true.I’ve seen the pictures,” Sansa began in the voice she used when we was trying to teach a sisterly lesson. “Gendry is a carbon copy as well, though.He looks exactly like Robert did in that picture of him and Dad during their first deployment. As fun as Robert seemed when we were little, he was definitely not the consummation devoutly to be wished.”

“Did you just quote Pride & Prejudice at me?”

“Hamlet.”

Arya shook her head at Sansa’s obscure references and continued, “Robert never even met Gendry before he died.Mum should have been able to spot the differences, or maybe trust my decision.”

Sansa’s needles stilled and a crease appeared between her brows before disappearing as she said, “I didn’t make a wise decision when I chose to come with Dad to be closer to Joffrey, or when I stayed with him after the…after everything started.I never really escaped.It was just a mercy the bastard choked on his own vomit and Sandor could bring me home.”

“Sansa, you were little more than a child,” Arya said gently, trying not to picture the horrible things that had happened to her sister while Arya was back in the North.

“I was seventeen before I asked for help,” Sansa said, her icy gaze boring into Arya’s heart. “You were barely sixteen when you and Gendry announced your relationship.While I think Theon was wrong to suggest you had been sleeping together for years, it was patently obvious that something had been going on between you two before that moment.”

“Oh, yes, we’d kissed and held hands while looking up at the stars from the hood of Gendry’s old banger.How scandalous,” Arya deadpanned.“And it took us a bloody year-and-a-half to do anything other than kiss and hold hands because of your fucking stupid husband.”

Sansa’s eyes flickered over to Theon.“The stupid rather got beaten out of him since then,” she said sadly. “Mum has had so little control over what happened to us.It just hurts her to know she has so little control over our lives now.”

“She always hated how little control she had over me,” Arya muttered. “Isn’t letting go of your children the point of parenthood? And her own issues with all the shit we went through aside, she shouldn’t treat Gendry like dirt because I chose to spend my life with him. She may have been a little cold to Talisa at first, but she’s warmed up to her. It’s like she’s done the opposite with Gendry. It’s not fair, to either of us.”

“Well, then you need to stop whining about it and lying to her, and have it out. This has really gone on too long,” Sansa said matter-of-factly while eyeing her over her knitting.

Arya sighed. “What good would that do? I’ve had plenty of shouting matches with Mum over the years and it’s never changed either of our minds.”

“I didn’t say have a shouting match. I said have it out with her. You’re a grown woman and about to be a mother yourself. It’s time to be a grown-up instead of acting like a surly teenager. She’s getting enough of that from Rickon right now.”

Arya scoffed. “Like that would work. It’s not like you’ve ever even had to have an argument with her.”

“Actually, I’ve had plenty of arguments with Mum. And I did have it out with her over my wedding.”

“Really?”

“She wanted us to get married in a big church wedding instead of a small ceremony in the godswood. And she wasn’t entirely sure I should be marrying Theon at all.”

“I suppose I should ask what’s wrong with Theon, but I could easily provide a list,” Arya said, smirking at the glare Sansa gave her.

“Mum thought I was just settling for Theon because of…everything that happened,” Sansa explained. “She was afraid I thought less of myself because of what-what Joffrey did, but I don’t. And Theon is not my consolation prize.”

Tears formed in Arya’s eyes at the phrase: ‘consolation prize.’ When their relationship was new and the Starks were all wary and Arya found herself frustrated at every family meal, Gendry told her that he ‘wasn’t much of a consolation prize in exchange for a whole family.’ They had been at the public library at the time, studying for their respective midterms. Arya looked up from her history text to find a look she hoped to never see on Gendry’s face again: his lips were set in a thin line, his jaw pulsed slightly, and his eyes were hard, but full of unshed tears.He was being brave and trying to give her an out. She got up, rounded the table, and smacked him hard on the back of the head before taking his face in her hands and telling him to never say anything like that about himself again. 

He’d never run himself down like that in front of her ever again, but Arya knew he still felt it sometimes.She would catch the thin set of his lips or the hard look in his eyes sometimes when she would talk about her family in the North, and especially when Arya became irritated with her mother. A part of him still believed that he was just her consolation prize no matter how much she told and showed him otherwise.

“Arya? Arya, are you alright? I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Sansa’s knitting was in her lap and her hands were clasped around Arya’s. Arya tried to smile and said, “I’m fourteen weeks pregnant, I cry at everything.”

“Arya,” Sansa warned, both sounding and looking like their mother.

“It’s what he thinks he is: a consolation prize,” Arya replied in a choked whisper as she brushed some hair away from his forehead. He didn’t even stir and his ability to sleep so soundly almost made her laugh. “He looks at our big, crazy, ultimately loving family, and he just doesn’t understand how he could compare. He’s stupid that way.”

Sansa squeezed the hand she still had in her own as Arya brushed away her tears. “Then you both need to have it out with Mum. Before Christmas.”

“Sansa, he-we just want to get through the week.”

“You’re not supposed to just ‘get through’ Christmas.”

“You’re not supposed to start a row with your mother at Christmas either.”

“If it’s not at Christmas, then it would be at someone’s funeral which would be even more inappropriate,” Sansa replied in that irritatingly prim tone of hers.

“Sans...”

“No, Arya. This has gone on long enough. It’s affecting you and your husband and is a scar on your relationship. Don’t let it fester now that you’re bringing a child into the world.”

Arya groaned wordlessly. She hated to admit when Sansa was right. Unfortunately, Sansa was usually right when it came to managing personal relationships. Or at least right more often than Arya was.

“Fine. But if this ruins Christmas, I’m blaming it all on you.”


	2. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tension-filled filled breakfast begins the festive season.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *waves nervously* Hey Guys...Christmas has come early this year, because this year super sucks and I wanted it to be Christmastime. And that reminded me of this fic, so I thought I'd come back and finish it. I did originally have five chapters plotted out (I've found the notes) but I built this whole AU universe in my head and must share. Hopefully, I'll get this finished this Christmas, or next Christmas. *fingers crossed*

Ned Stark had always been able to function on very little sleep. His boarding school ran like the military and his time in a war zone only cemented his habits.He still rose before the sun even while his wife slept peacefully next to him.These days he walked the corridors of his family home using a cane in the early hours. In the days before he had gone to be Robert’s deputy prime minister, he would go for a run or take one of the horses out when the weather was fine.But the attack that had taken Robert’s life had left Ned with a serious head injury and shrapnel in his leg. He was in a coma for six months, and he had little to no recollection of the six or so months after that when he struggled to remember the names of all his children.

A decade had passed since Ned had come out of that fog. He berated himself for not having the wherewithal to get Sansa away from Joffrey sooner. His eldest daughter had stayed in King’s Landing even after Ned had been transferred to hospitals in the Riverlands and then finally back to the North. He hadn’t seen how Joffrey had only inherited his father’s foibles, if he was indeed Robert’s son at all, which given the number of affairs Cersei Lannister was revealed to have had, seemed unlikely.At the best of times, Sansa was a prop used by Tywin Lannister to quell Northern secessionism.At the the worst of times, Sansa was Joffrey’s punching bag, and things Ned dare not imagine. In the end, Sansa turned to Tyrion Lannister for help. Tyrion enlisted the help of Sandor Clegane, who had once at least tried to protect Arya, and Sansa was home safely within days. Tyrion was just as crafty a politician as his father, but he was a far better person than anyone else in his family, which was why he supported Tyrion’s bid to be prime minister and was happy for Robb to do the same in the last election.

He supposed it was terribly old-fashioned and a bit hypocritical of him to believe he had failed to protect Sansa, when he had a son bound to a wheelchair. He had failed to protect her, true, but hand Cat both had failed to recognize who she really was. She was strong enough to ask for help. Cat had always seen Sansa as she saw herself: a support for her husband. But Ned had never seen his wife as a pillar propping him up; she was his partner, his equal in strength and likely his superior in cleverness. But Catelyn was set in her ways, Ned was clever enough to know he would never change that. His wife didn’t see that it was her own strength that lived in Sansa now, and had always been there.

Ned nearly chuckled as he neared his younger daughter’s childhood bedroom. Arya would be loathed to admit that the stubborn and willful streak in her came from her Cat, so at odds she was with her mother. Their relationship had teetered on the snapping point since Arya announced that she and Gendry were together.Ned worried that it would break when Arya and Gendry married and moved away to Storm’s End.

...

_“How could she do this? How?”_

_Ned had no idea what Cat could be doing with the various ingredients she was taking out of the kitchen cabinets as he sat himself down along the breakfast bar. Carefully, he replied, “Arya chose him long ago. I’m not surprised at all her time away convinced her there was never going to be anyone else.”_

_“She didn’t have to marry the boy,” Cat said through gritted teeth as she started placing most of the ingredients on the counter back into the cabinets._

_“He’s a grown man.And what would you have preferred? That they ‘live in sin’?” Ned asked, his voice laced with sarcasm as he used his wife’s own description of their nephew’s living situation with his girlfriend, Ygritte._

_Cat’s palms slammed down on the marble surface of the counter and Ned inwardly worried he had overstepped, but he thanked his military training and kept his gaze calm and level with hers._

_“Yes,” she began slowly.“Yes, I damn well would rather our little girl be living in sin with that boy than have her legally and spiritually tied to him. When he inevitably turns into his father, it would be easier to get away.But, no. Arya has had to do things the hard way, and we will have to pick up whatever is left of our little girl.”_

_Cat choked on a sob and covered her face with her hands. Ned hobbled over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back to his chest. “Our Arya will not break into pieces. She is too much like you,” he assured his wife. “And Gendry is not like Robert.”_

_“Robert wasn’t like Robert once,” Cat reminded him tearfully._

_He pressed his lips to her hair and said, “Robert spent his life spoiled, his arrogance fed to him. Gendry has worked hard and is humble in his victories. He won’t be like Robert.”_

_“I hope you’re right, Ned.”_

...

Catelyn would be incensed if she heard the breathy sighs and guttural moans emanating from Arya’s childhood bedroom. Ned himself felt torn between being mortified about what was happening to his little girl and happy that she was with someone with whom she could be so content. He was almost out of earshot when he heard a decidedly unpleasant _thunk_ followed by, “Ow! Fuck! Ow!” from Gendry and breathless giggling from Arya.

“You should see your face!” Arya said, her giggling turning into cackling.

After a beat, Ned heard a short yelp from Arya before he heard the unmistakable sound of a body bouncing against an old mattress. Her giggling cut off sharply, and Ned hobbled his way to the stairs before he heard any more unnecessary details of his daughter’s sex life with her husband.

James, one of the staff, was stoking the fire in the grand hall to stave off the cold radiating from the stones on the floor and walls. The young man straightened at the sight of Ned on the stairs.

“Sorry, m’lord.Wasn’t expecting you up so early,” James apologized, tidying the stack of wood near the hearth.

“Really? I’m always up this early,” Ned replied pleasantly.

“But you were up so late last night waiting for your family to get in that I thought you might treat yourself to a lie in,” James explained, awkwardly looking down at his shoes.

Ned chuckled. “I had a lie in once for six months.I think that’s rather caught me up for life.”

James smiled lightly and said, “If you think so, sir. The heating is working well in the family room. I can light the fireplace for the ambiance, if you’d like.”

“No, thank you, James,” he replied, patting the young man on the shoulder with his free hand. “I can still manage some things on my own.”

“Of course you can, sir. I wouldn’t expect anything less,” James said before moving toward the servants’ hall.

The Christmas tree twinkled in the corner, the colorful presents piled so high the bottom branches were covered from view. Instead of lighting the fire, however, he pushed aside the heavy draperies to let in the early morning light and pulled his rocking chair around to look at the snow covered hills beyond the house.Most of his children and grandchildren made it home in the early hours of the morning.Jon and his family would be there by evening and his family would be complete for Christmas for the first time in nearly ten years. Ned had a lot of things weighing on his heart; secrets he probably should not have kept. Christmas was as good a time as any to be honest, and he silently swore he would be as he watched the sun turn the hills to diamonds.

* * *

The seven years Gendry spent living in the North as a young man had done nothing to acclimatize him to the weather. He was only warm during a Northern winter while he was doing one thing, and he really couldn’t spend the entire visit balls-deep in his wife, no matter how much he wanted to. So he wore a thick, cream-colored, cable-knit sweater he wouldn’t have been able to wear at all at home and stoked the fire, wondering not for the first time why they didn’t install a more efficient system for heating the bedrooms.

After getting in after one a.m. after the train was delayed due to another train’s breakdown, Arya was exhausted and fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Gendry, however, spent a little time with Bran working on the surprise before joining her in a bed that was almost too small for the two of them.She woke him up in the early hours clawing the clothes from his body and later making him suffer a head wound as she sank down on top of him.He really couldn’t complain though, he liked stopping Arya from laughing at him almost as much as he liked getting her to laugh in the first place.

He just finished making the bed when Arya came out of the en suite wearing leggings and very large Grinch sweater with the Grinch’s face made of green fuzz sticking out at odd angles.Her chestnut hair, hanging down past her shoulders, was still damp.

“Are you really going to wear a different Christmas sweater every day?” he asked, digging into one of their suitcases.

“I didn’t pack any other shirts, so, yes,” Arya replied. “Would you mind braiding my hair?”

Gendry held up the hair brush and box of pins and bands from the suitcase to prove he was already ahead of her. She grinned at him with a devilish glint in her eye and sat down on the chair in front of her vanity.As he began to brush her hair, he said, “How do you want it?”

“Hmmm, that’s what every woman wants to hear,” she grinned up at him before answering, “I want it so it looks like a crown.”

“Who do think you are? Princess Leia?” he teased.

“Listen here, you little shit, I’m growing you a new human. You can at least braid me a crown.”

Gendry merely smirked as he finished parting her hair and tying one half of it out of the way.

“What’s so funny?” she huffed as he started a French braid from the base of her skull.

“Oh, I just find all five feet of you calling me a little shit amusing,” he replied.

“I am five-one-and-a-half!” she insisted.

“If you say so, m’lady.”

Arya grumbled and he knew she was resisting the urge to punch him. He just grinned as his fingers worked mostly from muscle memory. He’d been braiding Arya’s hair for over ten years. It started a year or so after he’d come up North. Arya’s hair had started to grow out from the unceremonious chopping she gave it when she ran away from King’s Landing, and was constantly getting in her way. He offered to braid it back and she laughed at the offer. He then accused her of being sexist and she plopped down between his legs on the floor in front of the couch where he sat. He’d woven her uneven fringe into a braid he pinned to the back of her skull since her hair was still too short to use a band. When Arya turned around so he could inspect his work, he realized how pretty she was becoming. He then wished for the earth to open up and swallow him whole when he spied Arya’s father standing in the doorway with a curious expression on his face.

...

_“Robert?” Ned asked._

_“No, Dad, this is Gendry,” Arya said gently as she roughly pulled Gendry up from the couch. “You know, my friend?”_

_“Ah, yes,” Ned said slowly, the fog lifting from his eyes. “Your friend. I remember now.”_

...

Ned had still been recovering from a brain injury at the time, but Gendry suspected the Stark patriarch had noticed the way Gendry awkwardly let his hands fly from Arya’s head as though they’d caught on fire. Regardless of any awkwardness Gendry felt, however, Arya started insisting he braid her hair before every family football game and later her fencing matches. They actually even managed to have one of their biggest rows ever when she was fifteen and had been fencing under the tutelage of Jaqen Ha’Gar for nearly a year, and she asked him to stop braiding her hair.

...

_“You’ve finally learned to do it yourself then?” Gendry asked, leaning against a stone bench as Arya went through her forms in the abandoned courtyard._

_“Yes. No. I just-I just don’t need the distraction,” she replied, her form faltering only slightly._

_“Distraction? I thought I was keeping your hair from becoming a distraction.”_

_“My hair is not the distraction._ You _are,” she said, turning on him and fixing him with a flat stare._

_“Me?” Gendry asked incredulously. “How am I a distraction? It’s not as if they allow you to cheer at those matches.”_

_“You just being there is the distraction,” she told him tightly. “You-you keep me tied to Arya Stark.”_

_Gendry simply stared at her in return.She often called him stupid, but her words were leaving him utterly dumbfounded. “What are you talking about? You are Arya Stark.You can’t_ not _be Arya Stark.”_

_She rolled her eyes. “I need to let go if I’m going to win. I can’t let anyone hold me down when I’m competing, not even myself.”_

_“Where the fuck you getting all this from?”_

_“From Jaqen.”_

_“Jaqen.”_

_“Yes, my fencing coach.”_

_“I know who he fucking is.”_

_“You don’t understand,” Arya continued, her grip on her practice foil turning white.“I always have to compete against this other student. She doesn’t even have a name. She’s put everything aside so she can win.I have to be like her if I’m going to win. I have to become No One. That’s Jaqen says, and I need him.”_

_“You_ need _him?” Gendry asked incredulously, clenching his fists as his sides. “You don’t_ need _anyone. You’re Arya-fucking-Stark!”_

_“Twat has a point.”_

_Gendry jumped at the appearance of Sandor Clegane from the shadows of the building behind them. He was torn between annoyance at being called a twat for the umpteenth time and relief that someone else in the vicinity was making sense._

_“Neither of you know anything about it,” Arya insisted, her eyes darting between them._

_“Maybe not, but we know you,” Gendry argued, daring to crowd into her personal space. “I know it’s been hard with Sansa coming home, and your dad, and Robb and Jon being gone, but you’re not alone.You don’t have to be no one.”_

_She pushed him hard in the gut, winding him and sending him stumbling to the hard ground. He heard Clegane chuckle from behind him. “You don’t know anything about it,” Arya seethed through clenched teeth._

_Gendry reached up and angrily pulled the foil from her grip and tossed it aside. He scrambled to his feet and towered over her. Arya glared up at him, but didn’t shrink back. Gendry thought he heard Clegane take his truncheon from his belt, but he didn’t much care. She needed to understand what she was saying._

_“I know what it’s like to really be no one from nowhere and have nothing,” he told her, his voice low. “That’s not you. That never has been you.You helped make me into someone. Don’t give up on that for yourself.”_

_A grunt came from behind him. “Twat has a point.”_

_Gendry rolled his eyes before murmuring something about studying for his exams. He didn’t even turn when she called his name. He crossed the grounds and got into the old Volvo estate he called his own. He selfishly refused to answer any of her calls or texts for the next day or so. He did, after all, have his A-Levels to study for._

_His phone buzzed incessantly on the table of his friend, Gilly’s, shared apartment with her not-boyfriend, Sam. She looked at him with knitted eyebrows and pursed lips.Her one-year-old bounced lightly on her knee in time with her pencil tapping against her notebook. Gendry swore the kid was giving him a judgmental look as well._

_“You need to go,” Gilly told him._

_“She doesn’t want me,” he replied, not looking up from his physics text. “That’s what she said.”_

_“The number of notifications on your phone says otherwise.Just go. You can’t cram anything more into that thick skull of yours in this state.”_

_Little Sam, who was of course named after Gilly’s not-boyfriend, tossed a handful of cheerios at Gendry’s head to emphasize the point. He huffed and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. “Fine.I’ll go. But not because she asked.”_

_“Of course not.You’re going because you love her,” Gilly replied smirking._

_“What? I don’t-I’m not-I don’t love her.I mean, I do, but I’m not_ in _love with her.”_

_“Really? I don’t believe you.”_

_“Yeah, well, I don’t believe you’re not in love with the man you live with, so I suppose that makes us even,” Gendry returned, causing Gilly to gape at him while Little Sam just giggled._

...

“What are you smiling about?”

“Just thinking about how we rowed about me braiding your hair,” he answered, pulling a braid across her head and pinning it down.

“Only once,” she argued.

“And you never apologized,” he reminded her.

She glared at him in the mirror. “I’m not apologizing for doing what I thought was best at the time,” she replied authoritatively. “And you were a distraction. Jaqen was terrible cunt in all other respects, but he was right about that.”

He finished hiding the ends of her braids in the crown he’d created, and leaned down until he could press his lips to her jaw just below her ear. He smirked as a shiver cascaded down her body. “As I recall, you wiped the floor with that petty bitch even with me watching you,” he said breathily. “Clegane almost smiled when you told him he could fire Jaqen for you.”

Arya turned her head to look at him, her face mere millimeters from his. “You should be apologizing to me. I thought you were going to kiss me that day, and you didn’t.”

Gendry held his place even though the greater part of him wanted to back away from the dangerously teasing tone in her voice. “I kissed you three months later at the end of the summer,” he reminded her.

“I kissed you, stupid.”

“Only after I told you I was in love with you.”

“Because you were jealous of poor Ned Dayne and little drunk.”

He shrugged and said, “Still said I love you first.”

She rolled her eyes before kissing him him briefly and pushing him away so she could stand. “Come on, we have to get down to breakfast.”

He swallowed a groan as she took him by the hand and lead him out of her room and through Winterfell’s corridors. They saw Rickon as he passed them on the stairs; he didn’t look up from his phone and smelled of something that was definitely not cigarette smoke. Bran was waiting at the bottom of the grand staircase in his wheelchair. His massive Irish wolfhound, Hodor, sat faithfully by his side.He greeted his brother with a smile, but the youngest Stark barely looked up at him before continuing toward the dining room.

“I guess Rick’s not enjoying his first term at university,” Arya commented.

“Oh, he’s enjoyed it plenty,” Bran replied, “but Dad had to have a ‘special’ conversation with the dean to keep him at Northern for another term. He probably should have taken a gap year like you did.”

“Well, it was a grounding experience for me,” Arya agreed.

“I never took a gap year, and I was fine,” Gendry interjected.

“Well, you were already a grumpy old man when you were fifteen,” Arya teased.

“Hey!”

“And you had a reason to stay close,” Bran said motioning toward his sister. “By the time Arya’s gap year came along, you both knew where you stood.”

Gendry chuckled at Bran’s equally succinct and serene summation of their relationship. Arya held onto his hand as they followed behind Bran and Hodor toward the dining room.

“Why did you need to steal my husband last night, anyway? I had to fall asleep by myself,” Arya whined jokingly.

“Gendry needed my help with his surprise for Christmas, and our bedrooms share a wall, so you can’t call me the inconsiderate one.”

Gendry felt a blush creeping up his neck as Arya barked out a laugh. “What could you be doing to help with his surprise? You’re about to be a doctor of history.”

“Shouldn’t you ask your husband that?”

“He’d just recite the dictionary definition of surprise.”

Gendry chuckled at the truth of her statement.

“In that case, we were working on an unexpected event, fact, or thing,” Bran replied.Gendry thought he was probably smirking. Arya’s eyes rolled almost all the way back into her skull as she let out a groan of frustration as they came into the dining room. Breakfasts in the Stark house were served buffet-style. Gendry thought almost every meal should be served that way considering the whole pack of them could fill a small restaurant, but Ned, and especially Catelyn, wanted to preserve the old ways. The butler, Luwin, stood studiously by the buffet waiting for anyone to need a refill of their coffee or tea. The gaunt man, who was old when Gendry first started coming around twelve years earlier, might have looked like a villain in a horror movie had his smile not been so warm.

Ned was already seated at the head of the table, leaning over to look at the game on the iPad his namesake was explaining to him. Robb was reading the paper while Talisa helped Alysanne with her eggs next to him. Rickon let his plate clatter to the surface of the table as he plopped down in the chair next to young Ned without looking up from his phone.

“Rickon,” the elder Ned began in his firm but gentle voice, “put your phone away before your food gets cold, or stains the tablecloth. You too, Little Ned.”

Young Ned sighed, but immediately put his iPad down and slid into his seat. Rickon, on the other hand, scowled at his father before dropping his phone on the table with a clatter. The elder Ned closed his eyes and drew in a slow breath before turning his attention to the opening door.

Catelyn Stark came into the room arm-in-arm with her eldest daughter. From a distance, one could mistake the two for sisters. They were the same height and build and Catelyn’s fiery hair was just a red as it had always been. Only when one got closer did the fine lines on her face and the hardness in her gaze mark Catelyn as the older of the two. She was impeccably dressed in a cream sweater with one of those excessive collars Gendry didn’t understand the purpose of, and black, fitted slacks with high-heeled boots. Sansa was only slightly less formal in dark jeans and a black turtleneck with hair that hung in waves and a full face of makeup. Theon contrasted with them hilariously as he followed them in wearing the flannel pants and vintage Night’s Watch t-shirt he probably slept in. Gendry had to take a long drink from his coffee cup to hide his smile at the sight.

“Good morning, everyone,” Catelyn said in a sing-song voice. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to greet you last night. I’ve been working long hours on the inter-faith bazaar.”

“What’s an inter-faith bazaar?” Talisa asked.

“Probably just a church bazaar, but the Dothraki from Deepwood Motte are involved,” Robb answered with a smirk.

“There are Dothraki in Deepwood Motte? Reverend Sparrow must have shat himself,” Arya said, earning a snicker from her eldest brother and a glare from her mother.

“Don’t be so foul, Arya,” Catelyn said, motioning to the giggling children as she filled her plate with fruit and toast. She continued, “If you had bothered to keep up with the local news, you would know Reverend Sparrow died two years ago.”

“So he definitely shat himself,” Bran whispered conspiratorially.

Arya barked out a laugh as Theon and Robb chuckled. Even Ned had an amused twinkle in his eye. Catelyn, however, was not impressed and Gendry could feel the heat of her glare even though it was not directed toward him.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” she declared, making her way to the end of the table opposite her husband. “And, yes, the Dothraki communities are involved as are Father Brown and his parishioners from St. Mary’s. It does very much feel as if the whole North is coming together There’s still plenty to do before it starts tonight. I hope you boys can help with the heavy lifting today.”

Young Ned’s face lit up. “I’d love to help, Gran! I’m really strong.”

Robb shook his head at his son’t excitement but said, “Of course I’ll help. Might even convince Jory as well.

Sansa stuck an elbow in Theon’s ribs as they took the last seats at the table. His head jolted upward and he confusedly took in his wife’s face before he looked at Catelyn and said, “Yeah, of course, whatever you need.”

A sense of dread formed in Gendry’s stomach as Rickon grunted his assent to help and Bran declared he would carry more than anyone else. His stomach dropped entirely when he felt Catelyn’s eyes land on him as she said, “And what about you, Gendry?”

“I’d love to help, but Davos and Marya asked us to come up today. They’re spending Christmas in Lys with their son, Stefan, and they fly out tomorrow, so today is the only time,” he explained, finally managing to meet her gaze for the last few words

Catelyn surprised him with a smile. “Well, we’ll certainly miss your strong arms,” she said before biting into her toast.

He almost sighed in relief before he heard her say, “Arya, I think you should set up the archery booth. You were always so good at it, after all.”

Gendry’s brow knit in confusion, but a glance to his left revealed that Arya, on the other hand, was livid. Her gray eyes were were locked on her mother’s face and her knuckles shown white where she gripped her knife in her right hand.

“Mum,” she said, her voice low and slow, “I don’t think you quite understood what Gendry said. Davos and Maria invited _us_. We’re both going to see them today.”

“Surely you don’t need to go along, Arya,” Catelyn replied. “They are only his foster parents after all.”

A chill passed down the table at her words. Gendry looked down at his plate, an old shame creeping up his spine. His background as an orphaned foster child had never been mentioned in the Stark house until he and Arya started dating. A part of him wanted to yell at Catelyn that Davos and Marya were the closest he had ever had to parents. The part that had learned to temper his anger over the years simply balled his fists under the table. Arya was practically vibrating next to him. He weighed the truly terrible options of doing nothing while she exploded at her mother in front of everyone, or trying to stop her and have her be angry with him until New Years.

“Cat,” Ned Stark said in that firm and gentle tone only he possessed, “you know you are my partner in all things, don’t you?”

The normally unflappable Catelyn Stark let out a startled chuckle. “Well, of course I do.”

“Arya is Gendry’s partner as you are mine,” Ned continued evenly. “Davos and Marya may not be Gendry’s blood relatives, but they are his loved ones. The holidays are a time for loved ones, and as his partner, Arya of course would like to spend this time with Gendry.I do not mean to speak for you, my girl.”

Arya smiled at her father as her body relaxed in the seat next to Gendry. “No, I believe that you said it better than I could have.”

“In that case, I do hope you are able to make it back for the bazaar itself,” Catelyn said with a forced smile.

Gendry silently cursed and prayed to any power listening that the floor would swallow him whole. “We’ll try, but we are at the mercy of the bus schedule.”

“Bus schedule?” Catelyn cried out.

“Mother, they live just outside of Blackhall Mill. Did you expect us to walk?”

Gendry braced himself as Catelyn’s eyes flashed furiously.

“You can take my old Land Rover,” Ned interjected. “Honestly, Gendry, you could take it back to Storm’s End with you if you liked. You restored the engine when you were in school. You earned it actually.”

Gendry stared in awe at his father-in-law’s kind and open face. He could, however, feel his mother-in-law’s eyes boring into the back of his skull.“Thank you, sir, but we really couldn’t make much use of it in Storm’s End. We appreciate the use of the car today, though.”

“Don’t you drive to work?” Catelyn asked sharply as she spread jam on her toast.

“The tram system in Storm’s End is incredibly efficient,” Robb suddenly interjected. “The underground in King’s Landing could take a lesson or two. If it was more efficient for me to take public transport, I know I certainly would.”

A discussion of the merits of public transport followed. Gendry gave Robb a grateful look and the other man merely smirked in response. Breakfast passed with less tension until they were finished eating and broke up to go about their days. James retrieved Arya and Gendry’s coats before they ventured out to the garage.

“Honestly, I can’t believe there’s still a footman that gets everyone’s coats for them.”

“I don’t recall you complaining when he took our bags to our room last night.”

“It just feels like I’ve stepped back in time when I’m here.”

“Well, parts of the house are over five hundred years old,” Arya said, looking back at the towers of Winterfell.

“I always got my own coat when I was a teenager.”

“You weren’t a ‘member of the family’ then,” Arya replied with air quotes. “There are protocols about that sort of thing that my mother puts a lot of store by.”

“Even though it’s me?”

“Especially because it’s you,” she answered. “She doesn’t like that you’re my husband, but traditions must be upheld, personal feelings aside. That’s how it works.”

Gendry stopped and took in the sight of his small wife in her heavy boots and woolen coat unbuttoned.

“What?” she asked, stopping to look back at him.

“You’re so hot-blooded, I forget all you fancy folk can be such cold fish.”

Arya barked a laugh and held out a hand to him. “You saying that because of Mum’s family crest?”

“Arya, I only know my own family crest because Renly put it on the company logo and yours because you’ve got it tattooed under your left breast,” he reminded her as he took her hand. “Of course I don’t know your mother’s family crest.”

“It’s a fish,” Arya grinned as they made their way into the garage.

“Of course it is,” Gendry chuckled.

The garage was actually converted from the barns and stables of old. The Starks still kept horses, of course, but the buildings were far more useful as garages and storage for the farm equipment. Despite the ancient titles and earned and inherited wealth, the Starks had never been extravagant. Ned Stark had never had the particular mid-life crisis that resulted in banana yellow Porsches. The rugged nature of Winterfell and of the north in general called for more rugged vehicles. The garage was missing one or two of the pickup trucks that were likely already at work for the day. A couple of decade-old Defenders sat dormant near he pristine, black Range Rover that was likely Catelyn Stark’s. Bran’s little Fiesta and Rickon’s Evo looked out of place among the more utilitarian vehicles. On the other side of the four-by-fours and the snowmobiles was a 1975 Land Rover 3 Series that Gendry spent five years taking apart and putting back together. The paint job was new, though. It had been a faded beige when he had started restoring it. It was now a flat, dark green, as befit every old Land Rover in Gendry’s opinion.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take Dad up on his offer?” Arya called over to him as she removed the keys from the hook and pressed the button to open the garage door.

“What? Why?”

“You’re drooling,” Arya said, tossing him the keys.

Gendry snatched the keys from the air and shook his head. She wasn’t entirely wrong. He had put a lot of himself into that car; it was why he became an engineer. As inanimate objects went, it was something he could actually be sentimental about.

They were on the long drive to Winterfell’s gates before Gendry pointed out, “It’s not really practical for everyday life, though. It doesn’t even have a proper backseat we could put a car seat in or anything.”

The interior had been designed with old-fashioned ‘shooting parties’ in mind and was set up for moving as many people as possible on bench seating along the sides. The Westeros Health & Safety Council had clearly not been created when the car was designed.

“True. I’m rather fond of the backseat of this car anyway.”

There was a wicked glint in her eyes as her small hand squeezed his thigh. He shifted in his seat to relieve the building pressure in his trousers as he turned onto the main road and said, “Hands to yourself, Stark. We need to make it to Davos and Marya in one piece.”

Arya rolled her eyes before kissing his cheek and settling back into her seat. “Since you turned down ownership, we are going to have to have a go one last time before the holidays are over.”

“Last time?” Gendry asked. “I don’t think your dad’s going to get rid of this car just because he offered it to me.”

“It’s not that. I’m just not sure you’re supposed to sneak off for a shag in the back of your dad’s car when you’ve got a baby of your own.”

“I don’t think you’re technically _supposed_ to sneak off for a shag in the back of your dad’s car when you’re barely eighteen come to that.”

Arya laughed. “You’re probably right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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